TBS aired Grease again over the weekend and I happened to tune in just as Olivia, JT et al had a scene in a soda shop. On the wall behind Olivia there was what I determined to be a Coca-Cola advertisement which had been digitally obscured yet later in the same scene I noticed a cooler with the Coke logo unobscured. The ad took the form of a large wall painting, presumably of people enjoying Coke and featured the large red button emblazoned with the logo. I’m sure that if I had paid attention longer I would have seen Coke glasses, bottles and other recognizable elements of Coke’s worldwide plan for world domination. Why do the network execs feel it’s necessary to remove some of the product placement and not others? Did Coke choose to pay for some of the product placement? What gives?
WAG #1) TBS knew you’d notice the big sign, but hoped you wouldn’t notice the cooler and/or any other props with Coca-Cola® signage on them.
WAG#2) They obscured the poster for whatever reason but but left the cooler and/or other props intact for the sake of authenticity.
Your WAG’s might explain it exactly but from personal experience I’m more likely to notice something in its absence. If I had just seen the poster on the wall I would have thought nothing of it, likewise the cooler, coke glasses and other logo merch. I probably would have surfed on immediately until I noticed the blurred image, then I had to watch long enough to realize what it was. It’s like the Poe’ short story The Purloined Letter, leave it in full view and most people are unlikely to notice it; try to hide it and it sticks out like a sore thumb. And that very well may be the thought process used by the people who brought us “New” Coke. Still for me the overall effect was like listening to an edited version of a rap record.